November Fitness Challenge Final Check In + Recap

The start of December brings new goals and motivation, but it also brings to a close our November Fitness Challenge. As my marathon training came to a close in the end of October, I knew I’d be needing some motivation to continue working out after the race. The start of November brought the New York City Marathon, followed by some much needed recovery time. During this time, some accountability was definitely needed to keep me off the couch and stay moving. I created the November Fitness Challenge to do just that: challenge me and keep me accountable.

This challenge was designed to be flexible, in order to accommodate weeks of active recovery and less intense exercise. The goal for the November Fitness Challenge was to complete 1,000 minutes of exercise throughout the course of the month. This exercise could come in any form: walking, running, weight lifting, yoga, biking, etc. The 1,000 minutes can be completed at any time (heck, it could be done all in one day if you really wanted to get it all over with).

Throughout the month I’ve been checking my progress each week to evaluate where I am in terms of reaching my goal. Now that the month is completed, it’s time for one last check in to see whether or not I accomplished 1,000 minutes last month.

I had built up quite a bit of extra time at the beginning of November from the NYC Marathon, so I knew I would be able to exercise a little less throughout the rest of the months. I didn’t quite meet the planned goal for the final week of the month, but I knew that I didn’t have to get in that many minutes to complete the challenge.

November: Total Minutes of Exercise

Goal: 1,000 minutes

Completed: Exactly 1,000 minutes

Even with all the extra time I accumulated at the beginning of the month, I ended up completing this challenge with no minutes to spare. 1,000 minutes sure was a lot more exercise than I originally expected!

Throughout the month these are the activities that helped me accumulate minutes to use towards the challenge:

I started out the month thinking it would be a piece of cake to accumulate 1,000 minutes, but it definitely ended up being more of a challenge than I expected. There were many different activities that helped me accumulate the minutes and I sure am glad that I didn’t limit myself to one thing! Overall I am feeling really good about the activity level I was able to maintain throughout the month, and the amount of time I dedicated to marathon recovery.

How was your November, was it successful for you?! Hopefully you found some new sources of motivation this past month that will fuel you as we head into the holidays. These dark, cold months are always the hardest time of the year to keep up that motivation. I am excited to get started on the 30 day plank challenge and bring some core work to each of my workouts.